I still have my first watch that my grandmother bought me in 1958 when she took me to the local jeweler in Marshfield, WI and she bought me my first watch. For some reason I distinctly remember it costing $17 which was an amount a 7 year old boy could not fathom. I wore my Cadillac watch until about 1967 when I bought a larger, new fangled automatic watch with some birthday money I had saved up, and the little Cadillac was consigned to a drawer but somehow I never lost track of it through a couple of dozen moves, and 55 years later it sits in my display cabinet as a fond memory of my long departed grandmother. I think the Cadillac had been cleaned twice in it's lifetime.....the last time in 1983. I don't wear it but occasionally wind it just to bring it to life, and I like the late '50's style of the dial. Amazingly I have never opened the watch up because I didn't have a wrench. I bought one last week for a few bucks just to see what was 'in there'.

The watch is in an all stainless steel case, and the inside is signed 'Fortune Star Co. N.Y., Case made in Hong Kong'. The movement is signed Eloga Watch Co. which was based out of Lengnau, Switzerland. Import code is 'KZX' which is shown as Rutex, J. Weber, and Sellita. I can't make out the ebauche stamp since it is hidden under the balance rim, but it carries the code 1187/94. Does the ebauche look familiar to anyone?

It was good to finally see what was ticking in my first watch after all these years. I assume the movement was imported and cased in the US using the Hong Kong made case. The case is well made and all stainless steel to boot. Once I found the watch company's name on the movement I found the identical watch with the Eloga name on the dial instead of Cadillac. I'm not sure why the name Cadillac is on the dial, it looks very like the script used by Cadillac automobiles, but the watch came from a retail jeweler in a small town in Wisconsin. Perhaps it was just trying to coat tail on the luxury car makers name. It impressed me as a young boy to have a Cadillac watch on my wrist.

Does the '3 star' designation on the case back have any meeting? I have another watch from the similar timeframe and it has 5 stars in a similar pattern. I feel it must have meant something to the industry back then.

...that your first watch has survived so well. I wish I'd been as careful with mine.

The movement is an AS (A. Schild) cal. 1187/94. The 1187 is a 10.5 ligne movement and the 1194 has a larger pillar plate and measures 11.5 ligne. Your example appears to be the larger version.

Your Cadillac watch is a much better quality piece than is often found with all that verbiage on the dial and caseback. Often such marked watches have 1 jewel pin-lever movements in plated base metal cases. Having a good jeweled lever movement in an all-stainless steel case promotes longevity. Your grandmother bought you a very decent watch.

I didn't find any obvious connection between Cadillac, Eloga, and Rutex, J. Weber, and Sellita. The Mikrolisk trademark database shows the Cadillac label was owned by the L. Wachter Company Inc. Chicago Illinois, registered on 02/04/1957. However, it's not unknown for smaller assembler companies to case-up other-branded movements.

I'm not aware of any particular relevance of the 3 stars on the caseback. It may have been a form of case model/quality reference by the case company, Fortune Star of NY.

As a side story this was not the original watch my grandmother bought me at the jewelry store, when we got back home my dad asked to see my new watch. Upon inspection he wrinkled his brow and instructed my grandmother to take the watch back to the store and exchange it for a watch with a Swiss movement as a French made watch just wouldn't do. So we walked the five blocks back to the store where my grandmother told the owner that we had to have a Swiss watch. The man looked in the case and the exchange was made for the Cadillac, I think the price was a couple of dollars more than the French made watch. So perhaps by accident, and my dad's intervention, I got a better quality watch than first envisioned.

I have the same in a Pierpont watch that I bought new in 1960 and it has been absolutely trouble free despite some very hard (read stupid)usage in my younger years. Still runs well and keeps good time but your dial is in much better order than my Pierpont.